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Initially published on April 17, 2020

The Kindle has a series of world class fonts that were developed by Amazon. They tend to provide the best reading experience with fonts such as Bookerly, Ember and Ember Bold. There is a new font in town that is making its way throughout the e-reader world, it is called Bionic Reading. Bionic Reading revises texts so that the most concise parts of words are highlighted. This guides the eye over the text and the brain remembers previously learned words more quickly. The eye is guided through the text by means of typographic highlights. With the interplay of “Fixation”, “Saccade” and

An MBA on VCs, Marketplaces, And Early-Stage Investing

Today, I turn 35 years old. This feels incredibly weird to me because I vividly remember writing a version of this article on my 25th birthday, on the eve of the release of what would be my first book. But that is the nature of life, as you get older, long periods of time—like the famous Hemingway line—slowly and then all at once, feel like short periods of time. And so here I am, entering the second half of my thirties, reflecting on what I’ve learned.  In those ten years, I wrote more than 10 books. I got married. I had two kids. Bought a house. Then a farm. Then a 140-year old building to open a bookstore in. I’ve traveled all over the world. I’ve read a lot. I’ve made a lot of mistakes (as I wrote about last year). I’ve seen some shit (a pandemic?!?). I’ve learned some stuff, although not nearly enough.  As always, that is what I wanted to talk about in this annual article (check out my pieces from 33, 32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, and 26). Rules, lessons, insights, trivia that I’ve learned in the last year…as well as the last thirty five years. You may agree with some and find others to be incomprehensible or outright wrong (but that’s why it’s my article).  So…enjoy.  –Don’t compare yourself to other people. You never know who is taking steroids. You never know who is drowning in debt. You never know who is a liar.  –There’s a sign by the track I run at in Austin, put there by Hollywood Henderson (who paid for the track). It says, “Leave This Place Better Than You Found It.” To me, that’s the meaning of life, in things big and small (but mostly small).  –I’m continually surprised at how much even very famous, very rich, very powerful people appreciate a kind word about their latest TV appearance, accomplishment or project. The point of this isn’t that “celebrities are people too,” it’s that if praise from a friend/acquaintance still registers even at that level, what do you think it means to your kids or to your co-worker/employees or to your siblings and friends? –You don’t have to explain yourself. I read one of Sandra Day O’Connor’s clerks say that what she most admired about the Supreme Court Justice was that she never said “sorry” before she said no. She just said “no” if she couldn’t or didn’t want to. So it goes for your boundaries or interests or choices. You can just say no. You can explain to your relatives they need to get a hotel instead of staying at your house. You can just live how you feel most comfortable. You don’t have to justify. You don’t have to explain. You definitely don’t need to apologize. –You don’t have to be anywhere. You don’t have to do anything. All that pressure is in your head. It’s all made up. –On your deathbed, you would do anything, pay anything for one more ordinary evening. For one more car ride to school with your children. For one more juicy peach. For one more hour on a park bench. Yet here you are, experiencing any number of those things, and rushing through it. Or brushing it off. Or complaining about it because it’s hot or there is traffic or because of some alert that just popped up on your phone. Or planning some special thing in the future as if that’s what will make you happy. You can’t add more at the end of your life…but you can not waste what’s in front of you right now.  –The older you get, the harder it is to see how subpar—or outright crazy—the things you accepted as totally normal once were. You notice this trend when you have kids and people proudly (see: judgmentally) explain to you the insanely dangerous or cruel things they used to do to their kids. We used to let our kids…You see this with some of the COVID analogies people make (pointing out all the other dangers we accept as if it’s totally reasonable for so many people to die of heart disease or car accidents). It’s important to push back against this—to not let cognitive dissonance prevent you from enjoying a better, safer, different present/future.  –Speaking of a process that happens when you get older, I absolutely hate that expression that says, “if you’re not liberal when you’re young, you have no heart, and if you’re not conservative when you’re older, you have no brain.” Put the dubious politics of that aside, the implication there is that you should stop listening to your heart as you get older. That’s the opposite of what you want. The goal should be to get kinder, more compassionate, more empathetic as you go.  –Just drink more water. It’s very unlikely you’re drinking enough and a veritable certainty that you’re not drinking too much. Trust me, you’ll feel better.  –Same goes with walking. Walks improve almost everything. –One of my all-time favorite novels is What Makes Sammy Run? After spending the whole novel hoping that the main character “gets what’s coming to him,” the narrator finally realizes that the real punishment for Sammy is that he has to be Sammy. His life, having to live inside that head—even with all the trappings—that is the justice he was hoping would fall upon him. I have found that this observation held true with many of the people who have tried to hurt me or screw me over in my life. Comeuppance did not come in the form of some sudden event, but like Schulberg said, it was a subtle, insidious daily thing.  –This backlash against “elites” is so preposterously dumb…and I say that as a proud college dropout. Everyone and everything I admire is elite. The way Steph Curry shoots. The way Robert Caro writes. What a Navy SEAL can do. This idea that we should celebrate average people and their average opinions [...]

Last spring, I wrote an essay for The New Yorker about a notable habit common to professional authors: their tendency to write in strange places. Even when they have beautifully-appointed home offices, a lot of authors will retreat to eccentric locations near their homes to ply their trade. In my piece, for example, I talked

Finding a niche is not helpful early in a creator journey. Instead find a mode where you can keep showing up and feel connected to yourself

Jean Rhys on writing her masterpiece, the novel Wide Sargasso Sea

Imagine… Last night, lightning struck our house and burned it down. I escaped wearing only my nightclothes. In an instant, everything was vaporised. Laptop? Cinders. Phone? Ashes. Home server? A sm…

Why great things never came from comfort zones? Because the world is always changing. We need to face uncertainty to move forward.

Incorporate a weekly review in your schedule this semester and really get things done.

The antidote to overconfidence is our relationship with knowledge. The antilibrary is the solution according to Nassim Taleb.

Skepticism is a virtue. It requires a willingness to question conventional wisdom, and the guts to accept something after you discover that it’s actually true. Denialism, on the other hand, i…

The Pi Hole project adds an entire new level of performance and security to our home network. Powered by Docker and a Raspberry PI I can now block all unwanted Ads and Metrics network wide.

Follow the StarTribune for the news, photos and videos from the Twin Cities and beyond.

You’re one among millions, not one in a million.

Diana Chow is a music producer and artist based in Los Angeles. Prior to her music career, she was a Software Engineer at Twitter.

Lower the barrier and master the art of the start.

Listen now (14 min) | Plus Three other rules of thumb for real estate

Office hours, week #2

Read our article - On Needing to Find Something to Worry About — Why We Always Worry for No Reason. The School Of Life has a huge collection of interesting articles, read now.

What makes a work of art beautiful?

“Just win baby.” —Al Davis This post is dedicated to the late Al Davis. Rest in peace. Back in the bad old days when I was running Loudcloud, I thought to myself: how could I have possibly prepared for this? …

Interesting perspective sharing on what I read as really being addicted to the feed, or the new. We love the little reward we get from discovering a new video, a new post, a new whatever. Tarun sounds like they are pretty deep, but any of us that randomly pull out our phone and “pull to refresh” a feed are experiencing a very similar thing.

It’s a stepping-stone, not a compromise. The media and our culture push us to build something for everyone, to sand off the edges and to invest in infrastructure toward scale. But it turns ou…